In situ combustion (ISC) processes are applied for the purpose of recovering oil from light oil, medium oil, heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs. In the process, oil is heated and displaced to an open production well for recovery. Historically, in situ combustion involves providing spaced apart vertical injection and production wells within a reservoir. Typically, an injection well is located within a pattern of surrounding production wells. An oxidant, such as air, oxygen enriched air or oxygen, is injected through the injection well into a hydrocarbon formation, allowing combustion of a portion of the hydrocarbons in the formation in place, i.e., in situ. The heat of combustion and the hot combustion products warm the portion of the reservoir adjacent to the combustion front and drives (displaces) the hydrocarbons toward offset production wells.
In heavy oil and bitumen reservoirs, the cold hydrocarbons surrounding the production well are so viscous so as to prevent the warmed and displaced hydrocarbons from reaching the production well, and eventually quenching the combustion process. Various implementations of in situ combustion techniques, such as the “toe heel air injection” (THAI™) process, have called for the use of horizontal production wells to provide a conduit for the heated bitumen to flow from the heated region to the production wellhead. However, the THAI™ scheme, for example, relies on the deposition of petroleum coke in the slots of a perforated liner in the horizontal section of the production wellbore behind the combustion front. However, should the coke deposition not take place or not be deposited evenly enough to seal off the liner, the injected oxidant would be able to short-circuit between the injector and producer wells, bypassing the combustion front and unrecovered hydrocarbons. The resulting production of hot, rapidly expanding, combustion gases through a small number of slots could cause a liner failure if the erosional velocity is exceeded, leading to sand production into the horizontal section and eventually a catastrophic production well failure. Therefore, a need exits for an improved method for completing horizontal production wells for in situ combustion processes.